Europe’s longest-serving leader, President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, cruised to his seventh election victory in a row on Sunday in a contest that his exiled opponents dismissed as a sham, whose only purpose was to cement his autocratic grip on the former Soviet republic, Russia’s closest ally. “Don’t use the word election to describe […]

When Aleksandr G. Lukashenko last ran for president of Belarus, the former Soviet republic he has led since 1994, he faced an unusual phenomenon: rival candidates who actually tried to win. His eventual victory in that election, in 2020, widely regarded as fraudulent, was met with nationwide protests, a subsequent brutal crackdown supported by Russia […]